Call them cannon-fodder if you like, but Japan's national ice hockey team doesn't plan on just rolling over at the IIHF World Championships.

"It would sure be nice to win a game or two this year," head coach Steve Tsujiura said this week as the team prepared to leave for Germany. "That's our goal."

But it won't be easy for the Japanese, who are playing in Pool A with the world's hockey powers. Of the 16 teams that qualify for the tournament, Japan would be ranked a solid 16th.

Some of the National Hockey League stars slated to take part include Canada's Mike Peca, Vincent Lecavalier, Joe Thornton, Jeff Friesen, Ryan Smyth and Steve Sullivan. Phil Housley, Martin Rucinsky and Tommy Salo will also be suiting up for their respective national sides, and Russian star Alexei Yashin was rumored to be on his way to Germany.

The local boys are grouped with Slovakia (second at last year's championships), Finland (third last year) and Austria.

"We'll have some tough games, for sure," says Tsujiura, 39, who is in his third year as coach of the Japan team. "But we're taking the attitude that you should never say never."

Tsujiura embodies just that attitude. At 165 cm and 72 kg, he is a small man by hockey standards. In fact, he's a pretty small guy by any standards. But the Canadian native of tiny Coalville, Alberta, managed to carve out a successful career as a pro hockey player. Small frame, large heart.

After playing junior hockey in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Tsujiura was drafted in the 10th round by the NHL's Philadelphia Flyers in 1981. The little sparkplug played a year at the University of Calgary and then bumped around the minor leagues in North America for a few seasons before joining Japan's Kokudo for the 1994-95 campaign as one of the so-called "Seven Samurai" -- North Americans and Europeans with Japanese bloodlines brought over to bolster Japan's Olympic program.

"Austria is a game maybe we can steal," adds Tsujiura, who played for Japan at the 1998 Nagano Winter Games, when they beat the Austrians in a shootout.

The Japanese team, which opens the round-robin tournament April 29 against Slovakia in Nuremberg and is guaranteed at least six games, recently spent a week up in Hokkaido working on its game and bonding as a team.

"It was good to get everyone together," says Tsujiura, who is also an associate coach with the Washington Capitals' top farm team in the American Hockey League. "Everyone's genki to go and show that we have good hockey in Japan."

Still, Tsujiura is a realist.

"We have to know our strengths and weaknesses. We should have the most success off the rush or with our transition game. Physically, we can't match up with some of these teams . . . we'll be giving away about 10 kg a man in a lot of cases."

Tsujiura, who retired as a player shortly after the Nagano Olympics in '98, knows that if his club is to have any success at the Worlds, it will require more than just slick passing and fast skating.

"We have to be 100 percent committed to battle. If we're not battling, we're not going to be successful."